Today’s teens are the first generation to raised with easy access to the internet almost from birth. When they were born into the world, so too were Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. While they were learning to walk and talk, they were also learning to like, tweet, and share. This means that today, they are as fluent on social media as they are in person, with their virtual lives being just as important as their real lives. So if you’re struggling to get results from your company’s current social media strategy, who better to ask than the experts?​Read here for tips on how to combine your CRM with customer-centric marketing.

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​What Social Media Platform Should I Use as a B2B Marketer?​

As a B2B marketer, it might seem intuitive to stick with LinkedIn, a tried-and-tested platform built specifically with business in mind. You’ve used it, it works – so why try anything different?

What do these statements have in common? “I quit my dream job without any new prospects.” “I went back to graduate school.” “I started working on my passion project.” If you guessed “things we daydream about on our Monday morning commutes” think again. These are the real-life stories that our panelists told during the BMA YP’s ‘How-To Happy Hour’ event last week, which focused on life-changing decisions that altered the course of the careers of our bold group of marketers, and advice they had for the next generation.

Our guest speakers included men and women from the Twin Cities who are working on challenging and exciting opportunities that required sacrifice, skill, and grit just to get off the ground. People like Heather Ann Koehn, who embarked on a 30 city tour of the US for her passion project, Project Light It Up, or Kayla Hollatz, who, at just 24 years old, started contracting independently full-time as a copywriter and social media strategist. With so many talented people in the room, it wasn’t difficult to come away with a few thought-provoking ideas for how we could all make our own bold moves, conquer fear, and be the drivers our own careers.

A post by Jenna Carr, Content Marketing Specialist at CelarityNote: Celarity is a BMA Minnesota Sponsor

Photo credit: Dreamstime

There’s no secret formula for attracting millennial talent or getting them to stick with your company. Millennials get a bad rap for job hopping and being seemingly unhappy in their work, but they appear to have a different approach when it comes to their jobs and their lives. In fact, they may even consider that their work is their life.

So, if this is true, it means that leaders need to better understand how to attract and engage millennial talent in order to retain them for years to come. According to the 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey, here are the top 5 retention factors for millennials:

Good Work/Life Balance

Opportunities to Progress/Be Leaders

Flexibility in Schedule

Sense of Meaning from Work

Professional Development Training Programs

​Great! So now you know some of the most important things this generation needs in order to stay at a position. But let’s take some time to break this down a bit more. What are millennials really looking for in a job and why?

Digital tools and channels have dramatically transformed the way your customers purchase your products and services. Like it or not, they now hold all of the buying power.

t’s no surprise then that it’s more important than ever for companies to adopt a customer-centric mindset. In fact, according to CMO Council research, 73 percent of marketers believe that customer centricity is critical to their company’s success, yet only 14 percent say that it is a hallmark of their company. One way to be more customer-centric is to leverage a powerful customer information engine, a CRM. A CRM solution can help businesses listen, understand, provide relevance and optimize the value of content interactions and relationships from the customer viewpoint, a topic discussed more in this free RBA e-book.

A post by Jenna Loepke, Content Marketing Specialist at CelarityNote: Celarity is a BMA Minnesota Sponsor

74% of leaders who participated in the 2016 In-House Creative Services Industry Report survey feel they do not have enough time to develop team members. It’s not just in-house creative management that struggles with this development issue – it’s a problem for supervisors across all industries.​How can leaders hope to squeeze in individual development programs when they are already spread too thin between priorities? Here are some ideas that managers can implement to make every moment matter when it comes to developing and coaching your team – even when there doesn’t seem to be enough time in a day:

​Identify needs and gaps for development in your team.As you work with your team, you should be asking lots of questions in order to identify missing aptitudes, skills that need improvement, and talents that would be considered “nice to have.” Once you’ve got a good understanding of each individual’s expertise and the missing skills gaps within the team, you can start thinking about ways to incorporate development and training on a daily basis.

A post by Amy Larsen, Communications Coordinator for BMA NEXT and Customer Success Marketing Specialist at Siteimprove

Are you in awe of that coworker who flawlessly navigates any professional situation? How do they do that? Chances are, they are excellent communicators. Though the skill may not be something you list on your resume, it can be one of the most important differentiators between good and great employees.

Become an office diplomat. Understand the challenges, expectations and ultimate goals of your coworkers, and find similarities and common ground to help you accomplish your goals. Be sensitive to others’ beliefs, cultural norms, ideas, and feelings. Try to find reasonable compromises and avoid steamrolling your way through meetings and projects.

As business marketers, how do we know if our online efforts are meaningful? We measure them! While cliché, the old adage “You can’t manage what you don’t measure” still rings true. By analyzing what we do, we become smarter, more disciplined marketers.

So, what is important for business marketers (and our bosses) to measure—and how can we track and leverage those things? In my experience, marketing analytics usually tie back to a few main objectives: • Sell more products or services;• Generate more leads, more inquiries from potential customers; and/or• Increase efficiency of marketing or corporate processes.

The good news is we don’t need to spend money on expensive solutions; there are excellent, free tools already in existence, which can help us accomplish our goals. To get the most of your marketing data, here is a list of three FREE tools and tricks for getting started.

Charles Darwin’s insights into the “survival of the fittest” evolution theory changed everything – from how we look at life to how we do business to the way we market to customers. It’s no secret that customers’ expectations have changed dramatically over the past few years due to the evolution of the customer journey. So, what does it mean to be “fit” in today’s business environment?

In my experience working with Minnesota companies, survival as a marketer is based on one important theory: Evolving along with your customers. As customers grow and change, your strategy in how you deliver experiences to them must also change. In fact, according to the CMO Council, 70 percent of buying experiences are based on how a customer perceives a company’s treatment of them. ​

A post by Jim MacLachlan, Vice President of Sponsorship for BMA Minnesota and President at Tartan Marketing​I know; “steal” is such an ugly word. But if you have big goals for 2016 and lack the marketing budget to make it all happen yourself, you have to do something to get things done.

Think about it. Marketing touches every part of your organization, so why not steal (okay, let’s say “borrow”) funds from other departments? Here are some tips on where to find extra dollars and how to convince other areas that “sharing” budgets can help achieve mutual goals.

Photo credit: Tartan Marketing

1. Synch with sales on new selling toolsIt’s your job to support your sales organization in selling more effectively, but sales tools take money to create. The key to getting sales to chip in on the cost of development is to show them something new and intrigue them with how it will boost results. If you’re just pushing another sell sheet or PowerPoint presentation, don’t expect them to get excited about coughing up their fair share. Instead, partner with sales to develop more effective tools, like an interactive sales presentation, that enables them to tailor each sales conversation to the customer’s unique needs. Interactive tools go beyond just telling your marketing story and really engages customers. Take your sales tools to the next level and pump up your sales team to get as excited as you are about allocating resources to bring those tactics to life.

A post by Amy Larsen, Communications Coordinator of BMA NEXT and Customer Success Marketing Specialist at Siteimprove​

Did you resolve to quit your unfulfilling, monotonous, I’m-only-doing-this-to-pay-my-rent job in 2016? You’re not alone. In 2015, the number of people quitting their jobs reached a 6 year high, and the U.S. economy continued to pick up steam as employers added 2.65 million jobs.

​So, if you’re among the 53.5 million Millennials in today’s workforce, chances are good that you’re either passively or actively looking for new opportunities this year. Whether you’re ready to make a change today, or are thinking about your options down the road, follow these rules for a more fruitful job search.